05-24-2016, 01:27 PM
Not much to add to previous posts on Yuezhi but I read Haskins paper and although his achievements and tenacity to make his way to the Altai are to be admired he seemed to have come to the same conclusion as Lozinski who I mentioned in an earlier post in this thread in that they both thought that the Ta/Da or Greater Yuezhi (Great Gweti, Gwoti, Goti) had a similar name to the Massagetae (Great Getae), due to an inaccurate Early Medieval Chinese transcription. Although remnants of the descendants of the Massagetae may have been part of the Yuezhi by the 3rd century BC, this theory doesn’t make sense as the Massagetae were around in the 6th Century BC and the name Great Yuezhi did not exist before at least end of 3rd Century BC.
According to Pulleyblank in his paper Chinese and Indo-Europeans, in the year 184 there was a serious revolt in both Kansu and Ch'ang-an of the Little Yuezhi who had been loyal auxiliaries of the Chinese. The revolt was not suppressed fully until 221. Chinese sources give no reason for the uprising but about this time the Kushans (Greater Yuezhi) under Kaniska, were expanding into Eastern Turkestan (Tarim) which could have been the stimulus which stirred their cousins to the east to take up arms. If true then the two groups maintained some sort of loose contact through the various silk routes. I haven't got them on hand at the moment but there are later sources
Pulleyblank also mentions in his paper of the occurrence is in the year A.D. 265 when a certain Yu-ch'ih K'o-ch'uan, evidently a tribal chieftain, is mentioned with some 30,000 households on the Ta-fei River in Ch'ing-hai (i.e. Buhain gol, the main river flowing into Kokonor from the west).
From then on Yu-ch'ih was a noble clan among the T'o-pa and men of that surname are prominent up to and through the T'ang period. In T'o-pa times they were distinguished from other noble clans as being of western origin. So the Little Yuezhi just didn't disappear after the Hsiung-nu attack in 162 BC.
When did the Yuezhi break up into the Great Yuezhi and the Little (Xiao) Yuezhi?. There have been a few divisions of the Yuezhi, in either 207 BC or 176 BC or both years, then again in 162 BC, in the Ili Basin in 132 BC. More than likely the killing of the Yuezhi king in 162 BC caused the break but the Yuezhi must have leaked supporters every time they were attacked. I think Alanus stated that after they were driven from Ili Valley in about 132 BC a lot of Yuezhi and Saka stayed behind and acknowledged the Wusun leadership which is common in steppe politics.
It is assumed that the Little Yuezhi withdrew to the Tibetan highlands and co-existed with the Qiang who were also nomadic and thought to be Proto-Tibetans. They may have been a weaker, less militarized part of the Yuezhi. Enoki seems to think that the Qiang were subjects of the Yuezhi and that the Little Yuezhi simply lived among them and did not migrate with the main group but stayed amongst their Qiang subjects and after a while spoke the same language as the Qiang and assimilated. Maybe this group of Yuezhi who lived in the mountains shared some ethnicity with the Qiang ruling class. Here is an image of the Qinghai region that they either occupied or escaped to.
There is also some later textual evidence in the Hou Han Shu that some of the Yuezhi did not migrate but lived alongside the Etsin Gol River near the Qilian Mountains which 2000 years ago looked a lot different to the present day which shows the effects of desertification due to clearing, logging and intense irrigation. It once had abundant water flows and a large lake (now totally gone) and plenty of forests. I have the feeling that the Gansu corridor looked a lot different 2500 years ago to the present day and probably could sustain larger populations.
According to Pulleyblank in his paper Chinese and Indo-Europeans, in the year 184 there was a serious revolt in both Kansu and Ch'ang-an of the Little Yuezhi who had been loyal auxiliaries of the Chinese. The revolt was not suppressed fully until 221. Chinese sources give no reason for the uprising but about this time the Kushans (Greater Yuezhi) under Kaniska, were expanding into Eastern Turkestan (Tarim) which could have been the stimulus which stirred their cousins to the east to take up arms. If true then the two groups maintained some sort of loose contact through the various silk routes. I haven't got them on hand at the moment but there are later sources
Pulleyblank also mentions in his paper of the occurrence is in the year A.D. 265 when a certain Yu-ch'ih K'o-ch'uan, evidently a tribal chieftain, is mentioned with some 30,000 households on the Ta-fei River in Ch'ing-hai (i.e. Buhain gol, the main river flowing into Kokonor from the west).
In 403 the same name occurs again, this time in the Ordos. In that year a chieftain of the Yu-ch'ih tribe surrendered to T'o-pa Wei with over 10,000 households and was moved to the neighbourhood of the T'o-pa capital in northern Shansi. A move from Kansu to the Ordos sometime in the 4th century is not at all surprising in view of the troubled times.
From then on Yu-ch'ih was a noble clan among the T'o-pa and men of that surname are prominent up to and through the T'ang period. In T'o-pa times they were distinguished from other noble clans as being of western origin. So the Little Yuezhi just didn't disappear after the Hsiung-nu attack in 162 BC.
Regards
Michael Kerr
Michael Kerr
"You can conquer an empire from the back of a horse but you can't rule it from one"
"You can conquer an empire from the back of a horse but you can't rule it from one"
